The Monthly Adventures #75 - "Scaredy Cat" by Will Shindler

There are some stories out there that get a bad rap because they’re “nothing special” and are called “boring” and “uninspired” because of it. And whilst there are some egregiously generic pieces of tripe out there, I’m going to stand up and say there is nothing wrong with the 7/10, with the fine, with the slightly formulaic, with the a-bit-forgettables. One of these stories was The Twilight Kingdom, a perfectly fine and very classic Who feeling story from the start of #51-100 that I defend in my review as a perfectly apt bit of Doctor Who. Scaredy Cat is that story’s writer - Will Shindler’s - second outing, and is equally, if not more maligned. I sat down, prepared to defend another just alright story but what I got was something I probably should’ve expected.

The worlds of Caludaar and Endarra neighbour each other, the former habited, the latter a world where all human life is banned, left to run its natural course: untainted. But when the Doctor arrives, he finds a research team on the planet, and with them the root of all evil.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Scaredy Cat really disappointed me because Will Shindler had won my trust with The Twilight Kingdom and then let me down; this story really is as bad as everybody says - a confused mess of a script with an absolutely baffling plot. Shindler does have some talent that carries over from his previous work, especially when it comes to imagery. The visuals this audio conjures up are great; whilst the actual concepts anchoring this story vary, things like the natives all chanting “scaredy cat” in unison is really cool. If nothing else, it’s nice to have some fun moments.

On top of that, I think this is a relatively strong cast, even if the characters feel somewhat generic. The only performance I’d call weak would be Galayna because it’s so obviously a grown woman speaking in a high voice and not a child but other than that, our actors are on top form, especially Flood, who, whilst I have issues with him as a villain, is made an enjoyable character by Michael Chance’s performance.

But what exactly have we got other than that? Besides some superficial qualities, this story is mostly the same as The Twilight Kingdom: just kind of fine. The story is paced well, there’s a good mystery and resolution, everything here seems a;right but there are a few things that completely derail it. For one, Shindler seems to have come up with a truckload of completely unrelated ideas and has just thrown all of them at the wall. For one, we have weird experiments trying to remove the “evil gene” from people (so, basically just The Mind of Evil), and also a plot about the planet being alive and harmed by a plague four million years ago, and also a plot about a random serial killer getting psychic powers. They don’t go together at all and only serve to muddle the script.

And for all these ideas Shindler had, it didn’t seem to save him from a good amount of cliché. All the conflict this story tries to conjure up and all the “character development” it tries falls absolutely flat on its face, which is a problem that The Twilight Kingdom shared. For one, the Doctor and C’rizz go back in time to when a colony on Endarra was wiped out by a man-made plague and perhaps the most predictable thing possible happens. Say it with me now, C’rizz wants to save the people but the Doctor can’t because of the web of time blah blah blah. It’s not even necessary for the plot, it’s just shoved in unceremoniously. This trope is really grating on me now, the Main Range loves it and really you can only do so much with it. 

Other than this, we have Charley being really easily manipulated, some attempted follow up on C’rizz being a murderer but not really and some kind of shaky moral ambiguity with the whole Doctor not even thinking twice about letting a genocide happen. All in all, this is just a naff story, through and through. It bites off way more than it can chew, nothing lands and it all feels so utterly insignificant. It’s thankfully very brief - the shortest Monthly Adventure in fact - and so there’s also very little to say on it. Will Shindler’s never come back, and frankly I’m not too upset about that because this was just through and through a crap time.

5/10

Pros:

+ The imagery and ideas are fantastic

+ Most of the cast is on top form

Cons:

- Throws too many ideas at the wall

- Horribly clichéd

- Any character conflict is forced and unnatural